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ATI Linux Drivers Problems

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UmHelp

Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2005
Hey guys I got ATI's Linux drivers and I am getting into X and everything works. But when I resize windows it hangs my computer. Have to do a hard reset. Any ideas?
 
Man just give up now with ATi drivers.

Here it recognizes one of my monitors goes to 1680x1050.
ati_fail_1.png



And yet it won't let me set the max res above 1024x768
ati_fail_2.png
 
I don't actually have Catalyst Controls I will have to check that out. Looks interesting, might help me get my dual monitors working.

I am actually going to Microcenter tomorrow to buy an NVIDIA Card. :\

I tried ATI and so far it has failed... I only gave it a shot because it was onboard.
 
might help me get my dual monitors working.

lol. Actually, I just finished getting my duel monitor set up exactly the way i want it, without buying a new card.

I read through the aticonfig man pages, went through 10-15 X restarts (guess and check, my friend. the documentation is actually dead wrong in places).

The four big commands you need:

Code:
aticonfig --initial=dual-head
aticonfig --resolution=0,1600x1200,1280x1024,1024x768 
aticonfig --screen-layout={left|right|above|below} // just start guessing, none of them are what they should be
aticonfig --xinerama=on   // if you like being able to drag windows between monitors

Setting the default monitor (for gdm, etc.) is left as an exercise for the reader.
Also keep in mind xinerama pretty much borks your wallpaper if you have different resolution monitors.

/* Offtopic

Have I been staring at the CLI too long, or did someone turn my Android blue?? :eek: :confused:

*/
 
It's green to me.

For those of you struggling it might be worth it to check out he xorg-drivers-raedeonhd driver. It's the open source ATI driver. It's a constant work in progress, but it's making headway. I know the documentation for 3d acceleration is out there but I don't know if it's been implemented yet. ATI did a good thing when it started releasing documentation for it's GPU's. Nvidia from a business stand point doesn't need to though, cause there drivers are top notch. However I'd love Nvidia to open up here..
 
NVIDIA is really so much easier than ATI at this point. It really takes no effort to get NVIDIA working. Plus anything I do with ATI leads to either freezing or very bad tearing.

I remember once about 5 years ago I actually work ATI drivers working perffectly. Then my card died and I switched to NVIDIA and never went back.

Hopefully Microcenter has a decent card for a decent price. I really need one cannot wait for shipping. I need to use my computer!!!
 
Just bought a Nvidia GTS 250 /w 1GB. Got it for ~$120. Not the end of the world but I really need to be able to watch my HD TV shows!!! I also 10000000% need triple monitors and ATI was not handling the different resolutions very well. So I just had to break down and get NVIDIA.
 
You didn't answer my question, since 3D is the ONLY reason to use fglrx drivers. Everything else can be done with Free drivers and xrandr which are part of Xorg.
 
You didn't answer my question, since 3D is the ONLY reason to use fglrx drivers. Everything else can be done with Free drivers and xrandr which are part of Xorg.

Ah sorry. Short answer is Yes. I could probably live without it but nice to have. I am currently in the process of getting all my good looking eye candy working.

I just installed my Nvidia card, recompiled my kernel and emerged nvidia-drivers, ran nvidia-xconfig and poof everything works perfectly. If ATI could get their setup to work that easily I would gladly use ATI cards. I think Nvidia has done an amazing job with their Linux drivers.
 
You didn't answer my question, since 3D is the ONLY reason to use fglrx drivers. Everything else can be done with Free drivers and xrandr which are part of Xorg.


Attitudes like this are quite well in line with LHB's guide on how to be a linux user.

When you have a configuration problem, do one or more of:

Tell yourself that you don't need that feature. Tell yourself that if you wait patiently you'll have it in 2 years, maybe.


If people didn't want 3D graphics, we'd all still be using C64's.
 
Attitudes like this are quite well in line with LHB's guide on how to be a linux user.




If people didn't want 3D graphics, we'd all still be using C64's.

Your ignorance is showing: I asked cause if no 3D is needed, there is a perfectly fine alternative driver. And your 2nd statement is just simply dumb. Next time do your comparison with a ET4000/W32. Much more sensible.
 
I think the underlying problem here is that the ATI drivers are just not up to snuff. Forcing the open source community to come up with their own drivers just to get the card to work is not cool. And wouldn't you know the open source drivers work right out of the box!! Where is ATI at?

A few years ago Nvidia drivers were just as hard to get working as ATI's. I remember spending countless hours trying to get them working and get 3d acceleration going. Any card you had (nvidia or ati) it would have taken you atleast a few hours of tweaking to get working, probably longer. Most of the time I would just give up and just live without it. Fast forward to today and you can see that Nvidia has really put some effort into getting their drivers to work right out of the box. It took me about 15 minutes to install this Nvidia card and get everything working. Most of that time was spent recompiling my kernel because I had to rebuild in all the stuff that ATI required me to take out. To me that is something about usability.

ATI's setup ease has not changed over the years. Their drivers may be better but if it takes a person hours and hours to setup and get working then what good are they. I personally don't really like sifting through hundreds of forum postings trying to find a solution to my problems. I am not knocking ATI cards but their Linux support needs some serious work.
 
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